A Child Learns What He Lives

When I was young, I had a poster on my wall, in my room.  Laying on my bunk bed, I looked at that poster many, many times.  At the top, the poster read, “A Child Learns What He Lives.”  Around the edges were cute little pastel colored kids, and in the middle, a list of things that children learn from parents actions.  For some reason, even after the poster is gone, the message has always stayed with me.

As I went from a child to a teen, I went from having small problems to having very large problems, for myself and my parents.  I feel very fortunate to have had parents that taught by example.  There are some parents that go by the saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Then they wonder why their teens have all the bad habits that they have.  Even though I was far from perfect as a teen, I saw my parents living a moral life, and that life, gave me the roots that I needed to get back on track after those teen years were over.

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”  Proverbs 22:6.  The poster that hung on my wall, when I was a child, said the same thing in different words.  I have to thank God, for imprinting that message on my heart when I was young, and for giving me parents that not only taught morals, but lived what they were teaching.